


Breakwater Boys

by Plenoptic



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, M/M, Multiple Timelines, Multiverse, Post-Canon, puppyshipping dominant, silentshipping dominant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-08-01 08:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16281524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plenoptic/pseuds/Plenoptic
Summary: Mokuba's probably gotten as much as he can out of his American interlude. Jonouchi flies out to bring him home, and the net sum of the news he brings is...mostly positive.  |  Mokuba's done more than enough time. Seto drives out to bring him home, and the news he holds out on is...mostly positive.Post-canon. Multiple timelines.





	1. 1.1

**Author's Note:**

> TW: mention of drug and alcohol use, World War II/nuclear bomb mention, brief instance of non-violent racism that is mostly an American being a dumbass.
> 
> I'm taking graduate exams this weekend so obviously I'm spending my night writing YuGiOh fanfiction for the first time in like six years.

Mokuba Kaiba has done cocaine.

 He’s not particularly proud of that fact, but he’s not ashamed of it, either. It’s the States, after all. Wanton drug use on the heels of too much alcohol is practically a rite of passage. His new circle of friends—avid users of a whole tapestry of illicit substances—were bewildered to hear him explain that Japan has a meth problem.

 “Isn’t using drugs, like,” a girl named Jo said carefully, passing him a joint, “an insult to your ancestors or something?”

 That was in New York. He hoofed it west after that, settling in Seattle, just to feel like he wasn’t the only Japanese person within five hundred miles. Mokuba knows fuck-all about his ancestors, but while Jo had fallen asleep on his stomach, sleeping the wild and unsettled sleep of the chronically high, he nursed the joint and thought about his brother. The thought wouldn’t have even crossed his mind when he was a kid, but at the wise old age of twenty-five, Mokuba realized with a sinking feeling that Seto’s insane work schedule probably wasn’t accomplished only on his preternatural ability to function on three hours of sleep. Maybe he couldn’t sleep. Maybe he’d used drugs _because_ he couldn’t sleep—or maybe they were the _reason_ he couldn’t sleep? Mokuba pulled out his phone and began to tap out a text, thought better of it, and finished the joint. He didn’t sleep much that night, either.

 Not so much cocaine in Seattle. A lot of cannabis. One by one, states across the US are lighting up green. Kids vape on street corners, exhaling clouds that smell of cotton candy and bubblegum, and spend the rest of their day pleasantly high. Mokuba partakes often. He feels settled when he’s high. At ease. Rough edges he didn’t even know he had feel smoothed over. When he’s high, the absence of his brother and his friends and his home goes from stabbing pain to dull ache. Tolerable. He still wishes he could go back. And he still can’t.

 If Japan were to legalize cannabis, Mokuba muses, staring out the window of the number four bus through downtown Seattle, maybe the stimulant problem wouldn’t be so much of a problem anymore. The bus creaks up to his stop, and he hops out into the persistent drizzle, trying and failing to find a way of holding his paper grocery bag to shield it from the rain. Resigning himself to a catastrophe of spilled vegetables later, he tucks the bag under his arm and steps off the curb, jaywalking across a road too narrow for two lanes of traffic but that has two lanes anyway. He passes the record store where his roommate works but doesn’t see him through the rain-speckled windows. The “N” on the neon open sign has been dead for as long as Mokuba has lived here; the sign reads “Ope,” like that noise some Americans make when they bump into you on accident.

 He traverses the two blocks between the bus stop and his tiny, shitty apartment with brisk, wide strides. Pubertry did him a real solid on the height front. He topped out at five-ten—a little under Seto’s height, but not by much. He’s okay with it. He cut his hair when he first moved to New York—too hard to have people staring at him 1) for being Asian (they could never tell what kind) and 2) for having long hair. He regret cutting it the moment he saw it on the barber’s floor, and has been growing it back out since. He pauses outside an empty floor-level studio with tall windows, surveying his reflection. The length is a little past his shoulders now. Not bad. Short hair had also made him look too much like his brother.

 Too easy to really miss someone you look like.

 He heads up to his fourth-floor apartment—the elevator is out, as per usual—and sets his soggy bag of groceries on the floor while he fishes for his key. For one heart-stopping moment, he thinks he’s lost it—and then he finds it inside the lining of his coat, having slipped through a hole that recently opened up in his pocket. Making a mental note to unearth his sewing kit, Mokuba pops the key into the hole—and sighs in exasperation when the door opens without his prompting. Leave it to Hide to forget to even close it, much less lock it. Guy’s useless at city living. He grew up in the middle of scenic butt-fuck nowhere, the type of town where everyone knows everyone and no one bothers to lock up. The words “breaking and entering” mean nothing to him. To be fair, Mokuba—who can barely remember a time in his childhood when he didn’t live in a gated house with a full security staff—also took a while to get in the habit of looking after his own shit in this place. But Hide doesn’t need to know about any of that—he just needs to lock the damn door. Mokuba makes a second note to give his roomie another talking to, then picks up his grocery bag and heads inside.

 Katsuya Jonouchi is sitting at his breakfast bar.

 Weird how easily something—someone—from home slips back into his life, clicks back into place like the last three years haven’t happened. Same way he finds it so incredibly easy to speak Japanese again when Seto calls, or when he visits the Asian market two stops from his place. His old pal Jonouchi is just sitting at the breakfast bar, messing around with the waffle press, and Mokuba comes inside and sets down his groceries and has one-and-a-half soggy shoes removed before he realizes that Jonouchi _shouldn’t be there_.

 “What the _fuck_ ,” he says, in English, because things haven’t finished clicking, at approximately the same time Jonouchi jumps up, grinning, from his seat, and bounds across the apartment with a “ _Yo_ , Mokuba!” that echoes off the peeling wallpaper.

 Mokuba buckles briefly—half under Jou’s weight, half from shock—and manages to return the hug with arms gone entirely numb. “Why?” he says weakly. It takes him a hot second to realize he’s speaking Japanese. It rolls so easy off the tongue. It _tastes_ good. Is that possible?

 “What, guy can’t drop in and say hi to an old pal?” Jonouchi knuckles the crown of his head briefly, like he’s a damn kid again, and then releases him. “Hey, what’s to eat around here? I’m starved.”

 “Hey, hey, _wait_. Give me a minute here.” Mokuba sinks onto the couch—which smells powerfully of Snoop’s Dream, Hide’s strain of choice—and cradles his head in his hands. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, Jou, but—geez, you coulda _called_ , at least.”

 “I wanted to surprise you.” Jou sits on the broken armchair opposite him, grinning his massive shit-eating grin. Mokuba’s missed it. “You look good, man. You’re—what, twenty-four now?”

 “Twenty-five as of two months ago.” Mokuba scrubs his face with his hands, looking Jou up and down. “Shit, dude. I can’t believe you’re _here_.” Something sick swoops into his stomach. “Oh, shit. Did someone die? Is that why you’re here?”

 “No,” Jonouchi says quickly, and then laughs. “No, man, no one died. Yeesh. I’m making the rounds. Helping Anzu pack up, too.”

 “Pack up?” Mokuba lifts his head and squints. “She’s leaving?” They’d hung out briefly while he lived in New York. It had been good to see her, but a little weird. He had a crush on her when he was a kid. It’s almost too strange to hang out with her now that she’s—like—a _woman_.

 “Yeah. But I can tell you about that later.” Jou gets to his feet and slaps Mokuba’s shoulder. “Dude, seriously. Food? I’m dying here.”

 “Alright, alright. One sec.” Mokuba gets up, locates his wallet, and leads Jonouchi out of the apartment. “There’s, uh, a good pho place down the road?”

 “What? Man, I didn’t fly six thousand miles—”

 “Closer to forty-seven hundred, actually—”

 “—to eat stuff I can get back home. I want _American_ food, duh.”

 “Don’t know how to break this to you, man, but there really isn’t anything here you can’t get in Japan. There’s this thing called globalization?”

 “Americana or bust, young mister Kaiba,” Jonouchi declares, marching up to the elevator and pressing the ‘down’ button. Then he presses it five more times. “What’s wrong with this thing?”

 “Yeah, that’d be your basic lack of infrastructure,” Mokuba laughs, jerking a thumb toward the stairs. “You _did_ say you wanted Americana. C’mon.”

 They settle on the cheap-ish barbeque place a half mile away, which ironically sells mostly Korean-style barbeque, but Jonouchi seems delighted and Mokuba hasn’t eaten anything more expensive than instant ramen in a few weeks. Nestled in a corner booth, Jonouchi gives him the run-down on home—Yugi’s third table-top RPG going gangbusters, old man Sugoroku still chugging along, Otogi very publicly dating some twenty-year-old idol whom Jou has met and actually seems pretty cool and doesn’t “put up with any of his bullshit,” Honda opening up a second location for his motorcycle shop, which has apparently added custom bikes to its offerings in addition to the fast, quality repairs that have made it something of a Domino staple. Most of this Mokuba knew already, but he sits and listens.

 “What about my brother?” he queries at last, spearing a fry off Jou’s plate. “You know anything he’s been holding out on?”

 And here is the first indication that anything is wrong—just the briefest of flickers across Jonouchi’s face, the very faintest fading of the corners of his smile. But then he pillows his chin on his palm and shrugs. “Dunno, man. We’d have to compare notes.”

 Mokuba stares at him for a moment, then dunks the fry in the veritable vat of barbeque sauce Jou requested and stuffs it into his mouth. “You go over to the house a lot?”

 “Sure. Shizuka likes to hang out, you know. I don’t see much of Seto, though.” Jonouchi folds his hands behind his head and sits back in his seat, apparently full—for the time being. He observes the other diners for a long few moments before flashing a grin at Mokuba. “Still seems wild to me. My sis and your brother got married.”

 “They sure fuckin’ did,” Mokuba agrees. They clink their beer glasses together and toast their mutual bewilderment at that fact.

 Of all the genuinely weird, _freaky_ shit he has witnessed in his young life, there are two things Mokuba doesn’t think he’ll ever get over—that his older brother, who is genuinely a good person but also sometimes an asshat, would wind up so head-over-heels for Jonouchi’s quiet little sister, and that said little sister would also wind up so head-over-heels for him. They make good sense now—opposites attract and all that shit—but Mokuba never would have placed them together in a million years. Shizuka was Seto’s friend and then girlfriend and then fiancée in a sequence of events each more perplexing than the last; Mokuba never had a grip on even one moment of it. But Seto seemed happy, and Shizuka was good for him. Seto worked less; he even _delegated_ sometimes. His temper got better, like his fuse had been lengthened. Shizuka talked him into downsizing; they gave up the manor, sold it and donated the profits, and moved into a house that made sense for a young couple with no children. Seto got a car that was less “sixty-year-old’s midlife crisis” and more “upper-middle class Japanese businessman.” They even got a cat. Seto Kaiba had a damn _cat_.

 And Mokuba moved to America. Totally unrelated. Seriously.

 “So Anzu’s going back to Japan?” Mokuba says, growing bored with the amicable silence. “What’s up with that?”

 “Well,” Jonouchi says, flagging down the waiter for a refill and answering Mokuba with a shrug, “she and Yugi are getting married. So.”

 Mokuba stares; the waiter offers him a refill as well and Mokuba doesn’t even hear him. Jou waves him on with a smile, then goes back to grinning at his younger friend.

 “Surprise, I guess.”

 “ _Married?_ ” Mokuba cracks out. “Damn. _Damn,_ dude. That’s awesome! I mean—that’s awesome. I had no idea!”

 “Not like they made a big deal out of it. He up and flew out here and proposed last month. Didn’t even talk to us first.” Jonouchi rolls his eyes and takes a swig from his beer. His cheeks are starting to look a little pink. “Him and your brother are the same way, you know. Always moving the plot forward and leaving the rest of us to clean up their mess.” He says it fondly, with a smile that Mokuba can’t help but return.

 “That’s great. What about her dancing, though? She’s doing good in New York, I thought.”

 “Yeah, she is. But, you know. She’s thirty. Ballerinas don’t have long careers. Plus, I think she’s getting sick of it all. She’s ready to move home.”

 “Can’t blame her.”

 “Nah.”

 “Is that what you came out here to tell me? About Yugi and Anzu?”

 Second indication—another moment of hesitation, Jonouchi looking a little unsure. “Sure—that’s part of it.” Jou nudges Mokuba with his foot. “What about you, man? What’s keeping you out here? Got a girl or anything?”

 Mokuba hesitates—not because he has a girl, but because he _doesn’t_. He doesn’t have much of anything in America. A bachelor’s degree that he keeps putting off finishing, partly because he doesn’t actually give a shit about economics and partially because he’s wringing his student visa for as much as he can get out of it. A couple friends who only want to hang out when they’re high. An inheritance that mostly goes to rent he really can’t afford much longer. A roommate who always forgets to lock the door. Mokuba Kaiba is going nowhere fast and really has nothing to show for it.

 Jonouchi looks at him a little longer, then ducks his head to admire the amber of his pale beer. “I’ve had a rough coupla years. Not gonna lie to you. Finally went to college, you know, and then I quit. Then Shizuka got married, and now Yugi…” He trails off for a moment or two, then sighs. “I dunno. Feels like I got left behind somewhere along the way.”

 Mokuba’s throat tightens to the point of pain. He washes the obstruction down with the remainder of his beer and sets the glass down a little unsteadily. “Hey man, you got a hotel?”

 “Nope. I’m crashing on your couch.”

 “Thanks for the heads up.”

 They settle the bill, tip generously, and head out into the night. The rain has stopped; the city still smells like garbage, but like polished garbage. Like garbage nicely packaged in a glass perfume bottle that looks like it probably costs more than the liquid within. They walk shoulder to shoulder along the wet pavement, jostling one another a little, reminiscing. Jou fills a lot of the spaces that would have been awkward silences otherwise. He’s bounced around to a couple jobs. Dated a little. Had a guy a few months ago that he thought would stick, and then he didn’t. Those are the breaks. They find a half-deflated soccer ball abandoned in an alley, and Mokuba kicks it all the way home.

 They head back up to the apartment, up the four flights of stairs, past the broken elevator, through the unlocked door. Mokuba shucks his shoes and heads to the kitchen to make coffee, his head still a little thick and fuzzy from warm dinner and cold beer. He turns to ask Jou if he wants decaf and stops—Jonouchi is still standing just inside the door, staring down at his sneakers.

 “Jou?”

 Jonouchi lifts his head. His cheeks are still alcohol-pinked and his eyes look a little shiny. “Hey,” he says, and he sounds so much older than Mokuba has ever heard him. It’s shocking, frankly. “Okay. So. I didn’t come out here just to tell you about Yugi and Anzu. That was, uh. A happy coincidence.”

 Mokuba sets down the coffee pot, slowly. Settles into a seat at the breakfast bar, also slowly. He can feel his pulse thudding behind his ears. “Oh, fuck. Tell me.”

 “Okay. Two things.”

 “Okay.”

 “Okay.” Jonouchi takes a deep breath. “First thing—your brother is, uh, sick. Pretty sick.”

 His pulse is a roaring. His blood is an ocean; it has its own tides. It’s overflowed the chambers of his heart and the property damage is incalculable. Serves his rich fucking heart right for building so close to the shore. “How sick.”

 “Not as bad now as he was.”

 “What’s he got?”

 “Leukemia.”

 Mokuba’s eyes fill with tears, and he dumps his face into his palms, sucking in a shuddering breath. What he didn’t tell Jo—what he didn’t want to have to explain to that well-meaning but absolute dumbass of a cute white girl—was that following World War II, Japan was absolutely flooded with hard drugs, an influx that rendered literally hundreds of thousands of people addicted beyond the point of functioning. Something about the inconceivable trauma of being embroiled in a war that cost a few million Japanese lives and resulted in the invasion and occupation of the homeland and also being nuked. Twice. Even a saint would want to be high after that shit.

 Mokuba knows fuck-all about his ancestors, but he does know that his paternal grandfather lived within a few hundred miles of Nagasaki. Knows he fled north to escape the haunting cloud of radiation and the specter of the city in the distance. Knows their dad had health problems as a kid. Knows that clouds of radiation that fill the air and fall in the water don’t just go away without consequences.

 “Second thing.” Jonouchi is close now, his hand on Mokuba’s shoulder, giving him a squeeze. “Second thing is that Shizuka’s pregnant.”

 The ocean that is Mokuba’s blood churns against the breakwaters. Churns and churns, and overflows. 

 

 


	2. 2.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: past drug use, drug addiction + treatment, past overdose, PTSD

Mokuba Kaiba has done cocaine.

He’s not particularly proud of that fact, but he’s not ashamed of it, either. It’s Domino, after all. The quaint little town where he grew up has grown up itself, developed a swollen underbelly where drugs and women and favors and rumors are capital and king. It’s way too easy to get swept up into that sick miasmic world, especially at twenty-five, fresh on the scene and with a degree under his belt and with his future, and his great-grandchildrens’ futures, completely secured. Mokuba is the inheritor to so much wealth he can’t even wrap his head around it. He throws money at anything and everything that moves, pours millions of yen into the nonprofits that crop up around Domino, and then billions, and buys whatever his heart desires, and then whatever his friends’ hearts desire, pays their rent, pays their bills, buys them cars—and the money keeps coming. It’s overwhelming. With so much security, self-destruction becomes impossible.

Drugs have a pretty high price point, though. Mokuba gets curious. And then more curious. And then it’s too late to backpedal.

He winds up doing three months in rehab, is in a posh facility in Tokyo the day he turns twenty-four. His brother visits and they play chess. Mokuba hates it when Seto visits him in rehab, because despite saying nothing at all, guilt and self-blame pour off his older brother in waves, manifest in every low word and sideways glance, materializes in the way Seto pats his head very lightly before he leaves that evening, like Mokuba is a little kid. And he is. The whole experience makes Mokuba feel more like a child than he’s ever felt. Seto has been dealing with all this shit, and more, for longer than Mokuba, and has probably never snorted a line to cope. He’s just stronger. Always has been. And that makes Mokuba feel like shit.

Rehab is a sobering experience in more ways than one. Mokuba went in feeling like the only person in Japan with a drug problem. He can’t believe how many people shared the facility with him, and how many of them near his own age. His roommate was a guy named Hide, who was trans and whose parents kicked him out over that fact. He couldn’t get his hands on any cannabis, and meth was the next available thing.

If Japan were to legalize cannabis, Mokuba muses, staring out the window of his brother’s Corolla, maybe the stimulant problem wouldn’t be so much of a problem anymore. The world rests under a persistent drizzle outside; Tokyo is grey, its bright lights muffled in the rain. Seto doesn’t say much, hyper-fixated on navigating traffic, only occasionally stealing glances at his younger brother, who pretends not to notice.

“Thanks,” Mokuba says after a bit, without preamble. 

Seto shifts gears and swears under his breath at a driver who swerves sharply in front of them to avoid being forced onto an exit ramp. “For what?”

Mokuba hesitates. The correct response is “for everything.” For raising him, for providing for them, for sacrificing everything for them, for putting up with _this_ bullshit on top of everything else… “For, uh. Coming to pick me up.”

“Oh.” Mokuba might have imagined it, but he thought he felt a wave of tension release in Seto’s shoulders, transmitted through the air. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”

Mokuba is about to say more, but then Seto’s phone buzzes. He fumbles it unlocked and lifts it to his ear.

“Hey.—Yes.—No, I’m not _speeding_. Shut up.—An hour or so.—Fine.—I absolutely will not.” Shaking his head, Seto hangs up and drops the phone into a cupholder. Mokuba could swear— _swear_ —that for half a second, he sees his brother smiling faintly.

“Who was that?”

“Isono,” Seto replies, without a moment’s hesitation. The specter of a smile is gone as he executes a haphazard lane change that has Mokuba itching to grab the “oh shit” handle above his door.

Suspicious. “Isono was mom’ing you about the speed limit?”

“You—know how he is.” 

“I left three months ago and he was as scared shitless of you as ever. He nags you now? What, you guys have a nightcap and talk about your feelings or something?” Seto scowls over at him, and Mokuba barks out a laugh, mock-reaching for the wheel. “Man, watch the road.”

Seto snorts and looks back at the greyed-out world beyond the windshield. “I see that place didn’t manage to rehabilitate your shitty attitude.”

“Shoulda left me there three more months.” 

“Don’t give me ideas, kid.”

Mokuba grins and props his feet on the dashboard, just to provoke that muscle in Seto’s jaw into a twitch. “I love the interior on this ride.”

“Leave _one_ scuff mark and I swear to God, Mokuba—”

“What? You’ll fire me?” 

“You’ll _wish_ I’d be so merciful—”

By the time they roll up to the dark manor, Mokuba feels almost _normal_ again—almost as if he’d never been gone. Seto parks on the expansive driveway, stepping out of the car and hovering for a moment with his hand on the door, staring up at the manor. 

Mokuba steps out and shuts the door, shrugging on his backpack—containing exactly one change of clothes, the ones he’d been admitted while wearing, and the single book he’d been allowed on the ward—and looks at his brother. “What’s up?” 

Seto hums, resting his chin on the open door. “Do you think we should sell this place?”

“What?”

“The manor.” Seto gestures to the huge, dark house looming over the manicured grounds. “It’s just—I don’t know. Do you?” 

Searching around for an answer—wondering which one his brother wants to hear—Mokuba swallows. “Uh. I mean. I drew on some of the walls, you know.” Seto looks at him, eyebrows arched, and Mokuba nods. “In my bedroom closet.”

Seto stares at him. “Gozaboro would have beaten the shit out of you if he ever found that out.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

A long minute passes before either of them speaks again. Finally, Seto’s gaze hardens, and he nods, setting his jaw. “Yeah. Let’s sell the fucking place.” And he slams the door, taps his key fob, and heads for the front door, gait wide and purposeful, briefcase slung over his shoulder.

Mokuba stares at his retreating back for a moment, squinting when the porch lights flicker on and lengthen his brother’s shadow—stares, then smiles, and follows. 

Much to his surprise, the manor is not empty. Staff don’t stay in the manor—there’s no reason for them to—but the kitchen light is on. Mokuba follows Seto in, and his brother heads straight for the kitchen without a word. Mokuba steps in after him and begins shucking his shoes, sodden from the persistent rain, and then freezes, propped against the doorway.

Katsuya Jonouchi is sitting at his breakfast bar.

Weird how easily something—someone—from _before_ slips back into his life, clicks back into place like the last three months haven’t happened. Same way he found it so incredibly easy to rib Seto over his mysterious phone call, like they didn’t just endure three months in a hell of Mokuba’s own making. His old pal Jonouchi is just sitting at the breakfast bar, messing around with the waffle press, and Mokuba comes inside and sets down his backpack and has one-and-a-half soggy shoes removed before he realizes that Jonouchi _shouldn’t be there_.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he says, at approximately the same time Jonouchi jumps up, grinning, from his seat, and bounds across the kitchen with a “ _Yo_ , Mokuba!” that echoes off the marble countertops.

Mokuba buckles briefly—half under Jou’s weight, half from shock—and manages to return the hug with arms gone entirely numb. “Why?” he says weakly.

“What, guy can’t drop in and say hi to an old pal?” Jonouchi knuckles the crown of his head briefly, like he’s a damn kid again, and then releases him. “Hey, what’s to eat around here? I’m starved.” 

“Outwitted by the waffle press, were you?” Seto snorts. Mokuba tenses almost on instinct, anticipating a fight, but Jou just swings around with his wide smile and flips Seto a finger.

“Ha-ha, wise guy. Just rustle something up, would ya?”

“Hey, hey, _wait_. Give me a minute here.” Mokuba sinks down at the breakfast bar—which smells strongly of Seto’s preferred detergent, which is definitely too powerful for use on household surfaces—and cradles his head in his hands. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, Jou, but—what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to surprise you.” Jou sits on the stool beside him, grinning his massive shit-eating grin. Mokuba’s missed it. “You look good, man. You’re—what, twenty-four now?”

“Twenty-five as of two months ago.” Wanting more than anything in the world to avoid talking about the miserable fucking reality of having his birthday in a rehab clinic, Mokuba scrubs his face with his hands, looking Jou up and down. “Shit, dude. I can’t believe you’re _here_.” Something sick swoops into his stomach. “Oh, shit. Did someone die? Is that why you’re here?”

“No,” Jonouchi says quickly, and then laughs. “No, man, no one died. Yeesh. Just making the rounds. Saw Yugi earlier, saw Honda. Thought I’d better check in with the boyfriend.”

Mokuba blinks at him. “Boyfriend?”

Seto chokes loudly on the black coffee he’s just poured himself, turning away from them and coughing over the sink; Mokuba thinks the tips of his ears have gone red. The smile slips off Jou’s face and puddles at his feet, and his gaze turns thunderous. He rounds on Seto.

“You didn’t tell him, did you?” 

“It didn’t come up,” Seto mumbles, snatching a hand-towel off the rack and ducking to mop up the coffee he sprayed on the countertop.

“Didn’t tell me? Didn’t tell me what?” Mokuba looks from one to the other—at Jou’s glower to his brother’s sheepish blush and back again. “Didn’t—” And then it dawns on him. “Oh, hell no. You— _you_ guys? For _real?_ Oh, _hell_ no.” He claps a hand to his forehead, blinking down at his brother. “ _Dude_. I was gone _three months!_ ”

“Alright, alright, look.” Seto gets to his feet, wiping his hands on the towel and shooting a scowl in Jou’s direction. “I admit it happened—quickly. I also didn’t plan on telling you— _tonight_ ,” he finishes hastily, when both Jou and Mokuba open their mouths. “Just not _tonight_.” 

“What else didn’t you tell him?” Jou demands. “About Yugi and Anzu?”

“What about them?” 

“No, because I—”

“And what about your—”

“For _fuck’s_ sake, Jonouchi, leave it alone!” Seto snaps, and then clamps his jaw shut, rubbing his forehead. “Sorry. _Sorry_. Just—later, okay? Not tonight. Please. He just got home.” He turns to Mokuba and shakes his head. “Yes, there have been some—developments. On a few fronts. I just didn’t want to bother you with it all your first night back.”

Mokuba nods. “Okay. So, uh. You two. For real?”

Seto sighs, the long-suffering sigh of the tormented. It is precisely the sound Mokuba would expect his older brother to make upon being trapped into admitting that he was romantically entangled with _anyone_ , let alone Katsuya Fucking _Jonouchi_. “Yes, for real.” 

“ _Shit._ ” Mokuba grins. It’s beginning to dawn on him just how much ammunition this gives him. “How long?”

“Two months,” Seto says, and hisses when Jou elbows him pointedly in the ribs. “ _Officially_. Unofficially, I suppose more like—eight?”

“ _Eight_? Wait—you were dating for _five months_ before I left?”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘dating,’ precisely—”

“Nah, just fuckin.”

“ _Jonouchi!”_  

“What?” Jou throws his hands in the air. “We _were_ just fucking, and then we became fuck _buddies_ , and now—”

“Please don’t assume we’re _buddies_ , or any iteration thereof.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, man? I’ve been _inside_ you. That makes us pals. By, like, _default_.”

“What an idiotically heteronormative assumption to make.”

“Oh, shit, I didn’t know Professor Fancy-words McFuckhead was visiting today, lemme run and put on the _golden_ toilet seats—” 

“Wait,” Mokuba says, holding his hands up, palms out, as if that can stop both the arguing and the unwanted torrent of images now stuck in his head forever. “Wait, wait, _wait_. You guys are _together_ and still bitching at each other.” 

“Yeah, I guess?”

“So it seems.”

“Has _all_ of the fighting up till now been flirting?” Mokuba demands, pointing an accusing finger at his brother, whose cheeks have turned positively scarlet for what Mokuba suspects is the first time in his entire life. “Man, you did that shit in front of me! When I was a kid!”

“Of course it hasn’t—” Seto cuts himself off and pinches the bridge of his nose, no doubt praying away a burgeoning headache. “Listen, while we’ve been mutually attracted for—some time—suffice it to say I’ve always found Jonouchi— _passably_ attractive at best—”

Jou shoots him an absolutely filthy look. “Be still my fucken’ heart, eh? It’s a _wonder_ I can even keep my panties on around you.”

“Idiot, I’m trying to _compliment_ you.”

“Oh my _fuck_ you suck at this.”

“Okay. Yeah. Nope.” Shaking his head, Mokuba hops down from the stool and scoops up his backpack and shoes. “Not gonna listen to this. _I’m_ gonna go put my shit away.” He turns in the doorway and points a finger at Jonouchi. “ _You_ are gonna have waffles ready when I come down.” A pivot to the right, and Seto winces when the finger lands on him. “And _you_ owe me an explanation. And you better help with the waffles.”

So saying, he turns and marches out the door, leaving his brother and apparently his brother’s new boyfriend grumbling behind him.

His room is exactly as he left it—well. Mostly exactly. Someone’s been in to dust, that’s for sure. And someone has definitely wiped the cocaine off his bedside table. Mokuba stands in the dark, staring at the tabletop awash in the moonlight, and his stomach churns. He was only in rehab for three months, but he hasn’t been in his room in four—the month-long interim he spent in the hospital, unconscious for two weeks of it. Two _fucking weeks_ he left his brother completely alone.

Mokuba drops his backpack and shuts the door. Sinks down against the side of the bed with his feet splayed out in front of him. Places his hands on his thighs and closes his eyes. Four months ago, in this spot, he overdosed. Four months ago, Seto had to come home and find him and…and…maybe, for even just a few moments, or maybe for hours, thought that— 

His stomach turns over, and Mokuba scrambles upright, bracing his hands on his knees and sucking in deep, slow breaths until the urge to vomit passes. Even when it does, he still finds himself dizzy, his vision blurry. He can’t believe how bad he fucked up. Can’t believe it. Can’t believe he put Seto _through that_. No wonder he’d needed someone to lean on, anyone…

Mokuba collapses on the bed, relieved to find that being horizontal makes the room stop spinning. He reaches beneath the pillow, finds the television remote exactly where he’s always kept it, and flips on the TV. The noise—mundane, boring—slowly overtakes the faint ringing in his ears. A weather report covering some choppy waters upsetting naval vessels. A blurb about Kaiba Corp’s “Deep Dive” servers, now up and running after a recent and unexpected outage. Some politician’s ad about his fundraising for a bill that will improve the breakwaters in Domino Bay.

Mokuba is deeply asleep when Seto checks on him twenty minutes later, sprawled out across the mattress, still fully dressed. Seto hovers for a moment, resting his head against the doorjamb. The headache that kicked up an hour ago has become a near-searing pain behind his eyes, and the ache in his muscles has settled into his bones for the night. He scrubs a hand across his face and places a hand on the doorknob, stepping out of the room.

 “Night, kid,” he murmurs, and closes the door. The rain pours on, lashing against the windows, a low rumble of thunder sending a shiver through him. Massaging the back of his neck, he heads downstairs, where Jou is undoubtedly still fumbling with the waffle press.


	3. 1.2

Katsuya Jonouchi looks at food with the tenderness of a lover. Mokuba doesn’t think that in mean-spiritedness; the seafood platter in front of them receives Jou’s full and sincere attention in a way that Mokuba actually admires. It’s the same look Seto gets when he’s fussing over a tricky bit of code or a malfunctioning piece of tech. Rapt, avid. Mokuba doesn’t think that look has ever crossed his own face.

“You lied to me,” he says, and Jou looks up at him in surprise. “You let me think you weren’t up to anything. But you’ve been cooking, huh?”

Jonouchi grins, abashed. “Yeah. Not super complicated stuff. I started because Shizuka needed some help holding everything down while your brother was—uh. You know.”

“I don’t know, Jou,” Mokuba says, quietly.

Jou flinches. “Right. Yeah. Sorry. While he was going through chemo. The first time.”

“The first time,” Mokuba echoes. The words sink like a rock into his chest. He leans back in his seat, casting his gaze around the almost-fancy seafood bar. They’ve arrived early for their flight, leaving them over an hour to mill around the thrilling four-terminal expanse of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Jou’s absolutely delighted; Mokuba’s bored out of his mind. But being bored is better than ruminating on the illness his brother didn’t tell him about—didn’t even _hint_ at—so he searches desperately for another topic of conversation.

“I’ll cook for you when we get back,” Jou says, jostling his shoulder. Always good like that, Jou. Not the brightest guy in the entire world, but he always senses when someone is upset. That's another breed of intelligence altogether, one Mokuba also envies. “Probably not fancy enough for your refined palate, but hey, your brother stomached it. Mostly. ‘Course, even my slop looks like three Michelin stars compared to Shizuka’s cooking.”

Mokuba laughs at that. He really likes his sister-in-law—loves her, really. But the poor girl can’t cook for shit. Which is fitting, because neither can Seto. “Is she getting sick yet?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s how she realized she was pregnant, you know. Hasn’t really let up.” Jou spears himself another shrimp and pops it into his mouth. “Seems miserable. Dunno why women do it to themselves.”

Mokuba meditates on that for a moment, then asks the question that’s been nagging at him since Jonouchi broke the news. “Were they trying?”

“Not sure. Shizuka seemed freaked out when she told me. But they’re doing all the baby stuff, so. Dunno.”

“They’re really gonna have it, then.”

“Seems like it.”

Mokuba rubs his knuckles against his forehead. There really is gonna be a kid. His older brother’s going to be a father. The thought makes his head hurt. He waves down their waiter and requests another beer. Is it 10 in the morning? Yes. Does he need it? Also yes. Jonouchi joins him.

“So what are you gonna do?” Jou asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you gonna move back to Japan?”

Mokuba pauses with a forkful of sea bass halfway to his mouth. “Uh. Guess I haven’t thought about it.”

Jonouchi quirks an eyebrow. “You want to be in the kid’s life, though, yeah?”

“Of course I do!” Mokuba puts down his fork with a touch more force than he’d intended. “Are you kidding me? Seto’s kid? Of _course._ ”

Jonouchi grins. “Seems like you’re moving, then. He’d never say so, but your bro would be psyched to have you back.”

He’s right, of course. Mokuba drums his fingers on the tabletop and heaves a sigh. “Yeah. I mean…yeah. But. I moved to America to have my own life, you know? To just…be.”

“And did you?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“It sucked,” Mokuba admits.

Jonouchi shrugs and steals some sea bass. Mokuba doesn’t stop him. “Look, I’m not saying you have to get back into it all—running the company, dealing with all the corporate shit. Hell, I’m not even saying you should live in Domino. But you and I both know you ran away to America. It’s a good time to run back home, Moke. Shit’s real now. Babies, cancer…shit’s real.” He sighs and gets to his feet, pausing to pop his shoulders. “Anyway. Sermon over. I’m gonna hit the head real quick.”

So saying, he strolls off, leaving Mokuba frowning down at his sea bass like it’s the one who had to go and get stupid married and made him move to America. None of which is fair, Mokuba knows. His brother is allowed to have a life, too. It was never going to be just the two of them forever.

That’s only half of it. The other half was Seto being _himself_ —driven and accomplished and tenacious. And Mokuba being none of that—Mokuba being good at charisma and good cheer and friendliness, and not having the slightest inkling what he want might his life to be, where his future might lie.

He’s still scowling at his fish when Jou returns, no closer to answers, and Jou doesn’t push him. They eat seafood and drink beers for breakfast and wait for their flight to touch down.

* * *

 

Fourteen hours later, when Mokuba sets foot in Japan for the first time in three years, he cries. Not hard, and not long—just a sudden wetness on his lids that he hurriedly wipes away as he steps down onto the tarmac and shoulders his backpack. If Jou notices, he doesn’t say anything—only claps Mokuba on the shoulders with a cheerful _“Welcome home!”_ that he has to shout to make heard over the sound of planes coasting in and out of Tokyo’s bustling airport.

He’s home. He really is home. Tokyo is big and bright and crowded, congested and over-full of people. The people who push past him as he and Jou work their way out of the airport speak Japanese. They pass a group of teenagers in school uniforms who are eagerly consulting a tourist’s guide to Nara. A pair of businessmen chat over the rattle of pachinko balls. Mokuba can’t recalibrate—it’s all he can do to stay on Jou’s heels, to not get swept away by a world he can’t believe he ever successfully navigated. Seattle is a quiet little hamlet compared to the mess of humanity he’s stepped back into.

Leaving the airport behind, they shelter in a ramen shop—and honest to God ramen shop, Mokuba marvels—and Joey downs a glass of sake before they order food.

“So we can take a train,” he says, apropos of nothing. “Or I guess we could rent a car.”

Mokuba breaks his chopsticks. “What are you talking about?”

“How we should get back to Domino, duh.”

“Seto’s not sending a chopper or something?”

Jou blinks at him. “Why would he?”

“Because—” Mokuba stops. “Hold up. Does he not know we’re coming?”

“Uh. Not unless you told him.”

“Dude! You didn’t tell him you were coming to get me?”

Jonouchi flinches, shifting in his seat, muttering a thanks to the shop proprietor when he puts down two huge, steaming bowls of ramen. “So. Uh. Yeah. He…may or may not have expressly forbid me from telling you that he was sick. And about the baby.”

Mokuba stares. “He _what?”_

“He, uh, said he didn’t want to disrupt your life. Or something.”

“Okay. Okay. Wait.” Mokuba puts down his chopsticks and threads his hands into his hair, cradling his head. “I get him wanting to hide having cancer. That tracks. But why wouldn’t he want me to know about the _baby?”_

“Maybe—I dunno.” Jou shrugs, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Maybe, uh—maybe he thought they weren’t gonna keep it.”

“Fuck. _Fuck_. So you’re telling me that the plan here is to just drop me on my brother’s doorstep and have me say—what, exactly? Hey, bro! It’s been three years but here I am! How’s the cancer and also the pregnancy? Fuck, Jou!”

“I dunno if I’d say _that_ , exactly, but, uh…”

Mokuba drops his head onto the table with a thud. “I hate you, man. How could you not tell him?”

“What’s that one saying about permission and forgiveness?” Jou pushes Mokuba’s bowl a little closer and then digs into his own food. “Look, man, if I told him I was coming to get you, he’d have put me on a no-fly list or some shit.”

“Seto can’t do that.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him. And if you knew that he didn’t want you to know about all this, then you’d have refused to come home, because you’re just as shitty and stubborn as he is.”

“Damn straight! If Seto doesn’t want me to know, I’m not gonna—”

“Not gonna what, huh?” Jou demands, jabbing an accusing chopstick at Mokuba’s chest. “Come home and act like a goddamn adult? Huh? Just gonna sit in your shitty unlocked apartment in America and pretend your brother doesn’t have cancer? You kidding me with that, Mokuba? C’mon, man, fuck that. You two are brothers. Fucken act like it.”

Mokuba stares at him in silence, fuming; Jonouchi slurps his ramen. As they’re the only two patrons, the shop is quiet save for the sound of water boiling and meat sizzling. At length, the proprietor—hovering on the other side of the counter—clears his throat.

“Your, uh. Your brother has cancer?”

“Dude,” Mokuba sighs, looking at him. “Seriously?”

The proprietor shrugs and turns back to stirring. Mokuba scrubs his face over his hands and heaves a sigh.

“Alright. Alright, alright. I should call him, at least. And tell him I’m coming home. Do you think it’s okay if I stay with him and Shizuka? Should I get a hotel?”

Jonouchi blinks at him, then snorts and shakes his head. “Mokuba, when we were sixteen and full of dewy-eyed innocence, I watched that idiot almost jump off Pegasus’ castle for you. Yeah, I think you can crash on his couch. Fucking hell, and _I’m_ the stupid one?”

Mokuba punches his shoulder, then holds out his hand. “Lemme use your phone. Mine’s not gonna work over here.”

Jonouchi hands it over, and Mokuba steps out of the shop, onto the bustling street. He finds his brother’s number listed under “Asshole My Sister Married” and hovers for a while with his thumb over the green “call” button—then hits it and, sucking in a breath, holds the phone to his ear, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

It rings four times. Halfway through the fifth, the line picks up, and Mokuba’s heart jumps into his throat.

“What?” Seto Kaiba answers. Mokuba thinks that’s objectively the worst way to answer the phone. He also finds he can’t reply—he opens his mouth but his throat is closed tight. “Hello? Jonouchi, what do you want?”

“H—” Mokuba wheezes, then swallows. “Hey. Seto? It’s me.”

A long, pregnant pause follows. (And isn’t _that_ a turn of phrase Mokuba’s in a hurry to forget.) When Seto answers, the caustic irritability in his voice has evaporated completely.

“Mokuba? Why are you calling me from Jonouchi’s phone?—Is everything okay?”

Mokuba hears voices on the other end—Seto snaps a “Get out” so sharp that Mokuba winces.

“Sorry, are you at the office? I can—”

“No, it’s fine. Don’t hang up. Hang on—Isono!—” The next few words are muffled; Seto’s probably covered the receiver. Mokuba rocks on his heels, feeling twelve again. The phone crackles with static as Seto readjusts. “Hey. What’s going on? Why are you with Jou?”

“He, uh. Flew out to Seattle. To pick me up. We’re in Tokyo.”

Another silence, longer than the first. Mokuba doesn’t think he’s ever heard his brother speechless.

“Wait, you’re—you’re in Tokyo? You didn’t tell me you were coming back.”

Mokuba’s fairly sure he would win a “shit you didn’t tell me” pissing contest at this moment, but he lets it slide. “Yeah, sorry. It was kind of a last-minute thing. I just…really wanted to come home. Is that cool?”

“Is that—” Seto laughs suddenly, and the sound takes Mokuba aback. Seto laughs now—like that? Loud and open? “Of course it’s _cool_. Which airport are you at?”

“Haneda.”

“I can charter you a jet through there, just give me—”

“No, uh—actually, I want to ride the train. I know that’s probably weird, but…I dunno. Is that okay?”

“Are you sure? A jet would be faster.”

“Yeah, I know. I just…” Mokuba trails off. He feels like he’s going to cry again.

“Alright. That’s fine. How long are you staying?”

“I, uh. Don’t know. Our tickets are one-way.”

“Good.” Seto pauses. “Mokuba?”

“Yeah?”

Silence. Mokuba could tell him he knows, put him—both of them—out of their misery. But if Seto didn’t tell him, he surely has his reasons. Mokuba holds his tongue.

“I’m glad you’re coming home,” Seto says, finally. “Call me when you’re a half hour outside Domino. I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay.” Mokuba doesn’t know how to hang up. Should he say “I love you”? Is that a thing they did? Ever? “I’ll. Talk to you then.”

“Talk to you then,” Seto echoes, and hangs up.

Mokuba lowers the phone and stares at the “call ended” screen until the display goes dark. A light drizzle has started up in the darkened sky overhead, a low peal of thunder rumbling miles off. A few school girls squeal and cover their heads with their bags as they hurry past.

Mokuba pockets the phone and heads back into the ramen shop. The drizzle that begins that night won’t let up for days, swelling the waters off Domino’s coast.  


End file.
